The Atomic Weight of Love (25 page)

I looked at him, really looked. I touched the lines at the corners of his eyes. “Crows’ feet,” I said. “You have the beginnings of crows’ feet, just like me.” Then I took a deep breath and said: “Show me.”

HE LET ME OFF
on Fairway so that I could walk home. I didn’t want June to see his truck dropping me off at my doorstep.

I stood in the shower, letting the warm water run over me. It was as though every pore of me was open, alive, taking in sensation. I thought of Milton and
Samson Agonistes
—how Samson despaired that eyesight was limited to the “tender ball” of the eye rather than being housed in every pore so that the world could be seen from every pore.

It had never happened to me, before Clay. Never. Never before had I experienced a climax. Sex had been fine, enjoyable, but I’d never before lost control, cried out, felt myself levitate.

Afterward, I’d cried. Not sobbing, not a bereft weeping, but instead warm rain on a summer night. I’d thrown one leg across Clay and sheltered in the hollow of his neck. I wanted to be there forever, to take up residence.

What was I going to do?
What?
I told myself to focus on the here and now. I dressed and headed for the grocery store to find something quick to make for dinner.

IN THE PRODUCE SECTION,
I exchanged hellos with Doris Beecham, who was testing the ripeness of peaches, and I wondered:
Did Doris know?
She had a Ph.D. in mathematics and taught at the high school. Did her husband take her to the places I’d been that afternoon? Had she ever floated in a world of blues, from insubstantial pastel to bold cobalt?

I perused the meat display and responded appropriately—at least I think I did—to Alice Van Fleet’s greeting. Her son had rejected all of his Los Alamos education and was reportedly studying to be a cobbler. A
cobbler
, in 1970. Her other son was a welder in Santa Fe. Did her sons know what Clay knew? Did Alice know what her sons knew?

I held a can of peas before me, failed to see the can, its label, or even my hand holding the can. What did Bob and June Jacobsen know and do in bed? What did June feel with Bob?

I put the can of peas in my basket and pushed the cart toward the checkout stand. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I’d bought fish. Alden hated fish.

AFTER DINNER, I SAT
beneath the buckeye tree where I could drift and listen to the evening songs of robins and finches, the Mozarts of the bird world. I wasn’t drinking. I knew I should feel guilty, but I didn’t. I let part of myself be Alden’s dutiful wife—albeit with secret misgivings—and I let the other part of myself dream,
live
.

I’d seen pink and mauve scars on Clay’s lower back, his buttocks, his upper thighs. More than a dozen of them. I’d kissed a few but had not asked about them.
The war.
It had to be.

A TYPICAL CROW’S NEST
contains between three and nine eggs, and crows sit the clutch for about twenty days. The time for Beacon and White Wing’s young to hatch was coming soon, and I needed to go daily, to check nest activity and listen for the sound of baby birds.

I went early the next morning. I’d not slept long, but I’d slept deeply. Clay arrived quietly, but not so quietly as to escape the crows’ notice. He grabbed the bill of my ball cap and whisked it from my head. “Beautiful Meridian,” he said, plopping the hat back onto my head so that I had to lift it again, cram rebellious hair beneath it.

“Shall I tell you about crow sex?” I squeezed his hand. “They’re like most birds—there are pregame displays and rituals.”

“Like what?”

“Crouching with drooping, spread wings, vibration of the tail, up and down.”

“Males or females?”

“Both—the females seem always to do it; the males are hit or miss.”

“Sounds about right.” He jabbed me in my ribs, and I flinched, laughed.

I felt younger. But not naïve—no longer naïve.

I continued: “They’ll vocalize, before. Then,” and here I looked down, blushed, “there can be screams—really loud ones—during copulation.”

“Oh my,” he said, mockingly shocked.

“Keep in mind that copulation lasts less than thirty seconds.”

“Now that’s just sad.” He kissed me lightly on the lips and then reached for his backpack and pulled out a folded blanket.

Decades of needles cushioned us, although a few odd ones poked their sharp tips through the blanket. “Let me be underneath,” he said, “it’ll be easier on you.”

That position forced me to be the more active partner, and I was nervous, but intrigued. I straddled him, but before lowering myself onto him I reached down to encircle his erect penis in my fist. I squeezed, lightly but firmly, enjoyed the velvet of his skin, the purple monk’s hood.

He bucked once so that he was more fully, deeply inside me, and the crows chortled above us, seemingly contented.

“YOU’RE NEXT UP TO
chair the meeting,” Emma said.

“I know.” We were headed for lunch at a tiny Española restaurant that served the best red chile. I was thinking about enchiladas versus chiles rellenos, maybe guacamole and sour cream.

“So, what’s your discussion topic?”

“Not now. I have to focus on driving,” I said, smiling.

“Oh, Meridian, please. Surely you can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

“Sex.”

“Sex!”

“Not bodice ripper stuff. I’m talking about lust, the sex drive, the part it plays in evolution, propagation of the species.”

“Well, gosh . . .”

“See what I mean? You’re my guinea pig, Emma, and if you question it, I probably shouldn’t do it.”

She was thoughtful, staring out the window at the landscape dotted with yellow rabbitbrush. “What brought this on?”

“Just thinking. About the role women’s desire plays. Men get all the press, and they pretty much control things. Well, maybe we let them think they’re controlling things. It’s complicated,” I finished, ineptly.

“Mmm hmmm.”

“I’m not talking about sitting in a circle, looking at our genitals with mirrors.”

“Well, thank God for that. Even Vince has only ever seen me in my slip.”

I hid my surprise at the quick glimpse into the McAllister bedroom. “Honestly, Emma. I’d never suggest some kind of encounter group—or whatever you’d call it. It’s not like we’re not in San Francisco.” We’d passed Santa Clara Pueblo and were nearing the outskirts of Española. “Maybe now is not the time,” I said.

“I think that’s a wise choice.”

“I’ll think of something else.” I worked to keep disappointment from my voice.

“And I’ll buy lunch,” she said, compensating.

CLAY AND I HIKED
to the Reservoir. In the deep shade along the dirt road, I bent often to touch soft, green moss.

Someone had gutted trout, and crows had descended upon the offal. They bickered and leaped about, played tug-of-war in a battle for fish intestines that stretched and then broke, leaving each crow to some extent the victor. I caught sight of White Wing, no doubt gathering food to take back to Beacon at their nest. I’d write it all down when I got home.

Clay was by the water, stripping off his clothes.

“You have got to be kidding,” I said. “The water’s freezing!”

“It’s called
invigorating
. Don’t be chickenshit, Meridian.”

No one had ever before called me chickenshit, and I wasn’t about to lose a match to Clay. With a dramatic flourish, I tossed my ball cap into a thorn bush. “Shit,” I said and then pulled my T-shirt over my head. It felt good to stretch my arms high in the sun.

Clay jumped in, feet first, and let out a loud whoop. “You’re right,” he said, treading water and slightly out of breath. “It’s fucking-ass cold in here.”

I’d been unbuttoning the fly of my jeans and stopped.

“No no no no,” he said. “Get in here.”

“Well . . .”

“I double-dog dare you, Meridian Wallace Whetstone.”

I pulled off my jeans and then, tucking my thumbs beneath the waistband of my panties, I surveyed the sides of the reservoir to be sure no one was lurking. Climbing onto the boulder from which he’d jumped, I leaped. I felt my hair lag above me as I plummeted deep into the algae-green shadows of the water. I looked up at my air bubbles as they caught the sun, became gold and mercury. I used my arms and a single, powerful scissor kick to raise myself to the surface, coming up about ten feet from him. It was my turn to whoop—a war whoop of glee.

The crows lifted off, cawing, only to return within less than a minute.

“We’re disturbing them,” I said, shaking water from my ear. The scent of fish hovered just above the surface. I treaded water and then flipped onto my back, felt the sun on my bare skin, heard the sound of the waves we’d made as they pulsed over and under my suspended body, rocking me.

I felt time slow to a crawl, felt myself enter the minutes, the seconds, expand into the present as if it were infinite. I saw my belly rise with each breath, watched a dragonfly speed across the surface of the water that buckled with my softly kicking feet. I sculled figure eights with my fingertips.

I liked how I was—alone, but with him, deep in the moment, sensing time and space on every possible layer—from atom to molecule to liquid. I thought I could feel the tickling eyes of fish below me as they calculated the meaning of my body’s shadow above their world. I thought of the microscopic animal and plant life that was suspended in the water, just as we were.

I was younger there with Clay, in that grand accumulation of rain water, than I had ever been. Time collapsed at the same time as it expanded, and I became Clay’s contemporary. His partner. His lover. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier—before, or since.

A Deceit of Lapwings

1. Lapwing chicks run within minutes after hatching.

2. Chaucer wrote of the “false lapwynge, ful of treacherye” in his poem, “Parlement of the Fowles.”

I’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks, gone for the last week of June, going into the first few days of July,” Alden said.

I looked at the 1970 Sierra Club calendar that hung on the kitchen wall next to the phone. “You’ll be gone the whole week?” I asked.

“The conference lasts from Monday through Friday, so yes, the whole week—including travel time.”

“The Fourth of July, too? I thought we were going to Emma’s for a barbecue and fireworks.”

“Sorry. I fly back on the fifth.”

“I don’t understand why I can’t go with you.”

“Because it’s a
scientific
conference.”

I shook my head. “Do you even think before you say things like that?”

“Here we go,” he sighed.

I lowered the heat on the Brussels sprouts. “You know I’ve always wanted to see Niagara Falls—you know that. I could do other things while you’re speaking. I could see the sights on my own.”

He shook his head dismissively. “This isn’t negotiable.”

“Why not, Alden? Why not? Give me one good reason—just one.”

“Because I said so.”

“That’s the kind of answer you give a child.”

“Well, you’re acting like one.”

“Fuck you, Alden.”

I’d never said it out loud. His upper lip trembled, and he came at me. I’d picked up my tumbler of ice water, started to take a sip, and he struck it from my hand. The glass flew into the wall, splintered, and sent shards of glass flying.

“I cannot believe you.” My jaw was tight to the point of pain.

He advanced toward me with a raised hand, this time as if to slap my face. Then I saw by his eyes that he’d stopped himself. Instead, he walked to the door, picked up his car keys, and left without a word.

I lowered myself to the floor, breathing hard. During all our years of marriage, Alden had never once raised a hand to me. Now, he’d progressed from pounding his fist on the table in a rage to hitting my hand hard enough to send glass flying.

My heart was racing. I scooted until I could lean against the wall, and I felt the back of my dress getting wet. I realized that it was the water, running down the teacup wallpaper. I needed to clean up, turn off the stove.

I knelt and started to gather the fragments of glass in the palm of my hand, and that’s when it happened. I misjudged the sharpness, the length of one shard, and it sliced into my right palm. I froze, looking at my hand, seeing the shard rising from my palm like some misbegotten stalagmite. There was very little blood—the glass plugged the hole.

Then, something shifted inside of me, something I cannot explain. I contemplated that shard, the power of it, its potential—and rather than removing it carefully, I squeezed my hand about it, purposefully pushed it deeper than it could have gone on its own. I wanted the pain. I wanted a pain other than that of my heart. I wanted a pain that could be bandaged, anesthetized, and eventually healed.

The pain was burning, instantaneous, and I dropped all of the other pieces of glass I’d collected. I ran cold water over my hand. Once I pulled out the glass, there was a surprising amount of blood. I tried to assess the gash and nearly fainted when I saw the extent of what I’d done. The cut was deep, very deep.

Then, I felt a queasy sense of panic. What were the layers of skin?
Epidermis
. The lucidum—that layer showed up only in the palms of hands or soles of feet. Then what? I needed to remember. It would help to calm me, surely. Granulosum. Or was the spinosum next? Hell, I couldn’t remember.

The bleeding would not stop. I wrapped my hand in the dish towel, as tightly as I could. I needed to get to the hospital, get it stitched, but I knew I was too dizzy to drive.

Hell.

June. I could call June. Or Bob.

But then they’d know. They might even already have seen Alden storm from the house.

Hell.

Clay. I wanted Clay.

I found the piece of paper he’d tucked into my wallet. The blood had already soaked through the towel, and I was getting it all over everything. My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t tell if I was weak from fear, adrenaline, or blood loss. The blood flowed more quickly when I released the pressure to dial the phone.